Colombia 2019: Palmira

Our first full day in Colombia, we got a small tour of Palmira. We walked first to the bakery to get breakfast - quite a selection!

We also got a tour of the construction being done on one of the houses they own and rent out. Then, we hailed a taxi and headed into the heart of Palmira, where we first went inside the historic cathedral. We walked through the square full of palm trees and pigeons and saw the view from the second-story balcony of an art museum.

The streets were hot and busy. We walked through a few shops and stopped in a side cafe for some guanabana (also known as soursop) shakes. Next, another taxi ride to a park. Unfortunately, it was soon closing for their lunch break, but we got a nice walk in before we had to leave.

Our last stop was a visit to one of the sisters of our host. We walked the maybe four miles back to the house. The sun was hot and the air humid; we made a brief stop for some raspberry-flavored ice from a small cart along a dusty street. A couple cats slept sprawled on the sun-baked sidewalk. The rest of the walk back was still hot and my hair began to stick to some sweat on my neck, but my mouth was cooled by the crushed ice.

Comments

Germany 2015 - June 19

Friday again - it was unbelievable that a whole week had passed already! On the way to school our bus stopped and shut off at random places at least six times. Apparently that bus doesn't always work. The first class I sat through was chemistry, and then English. After the Pause (a 20-minute break that they can eat and talk and whatever) we had German and then French and lastly, art class! Officially my favorite class to sit in, because Cassandra and I got to draw with colored pencils and talk with their art teacher in German, and she was really cool. For lunch after school we had goulash and a sort of doughy ball and salad. Later we went to Burghausen with Nici, her mom, and Cassandra, and Elli's mom. It was the most awesome place I had been yet. Burghausen is the longest fortress/castle in Germany and it's amazing. We checked out the inside museum part and I loved hoe it smelled so old! We also got to go up to the very top,...

Germany 2015 - June 18

Thursday was our trip to Salzburg! Our German hosts also went with us, which made them happy, since they missed a day of school. It was a long bus ride, as usual. But finally we arrived. Our first stop was Schloss Hellbrunn. We went on the Wasserspiele tour - in other words, the noble who built the place built it basically as a joke for his (drunk) guests and there are water surprises all over the place. It would've been fun if it was a hot day and I was in the mood to get wet, but I totally wasn't. Oh well, I dried off fairly quickly. Then we got to play on the most amazing playground I've ever seen. I didn't go close to see it, but I got a distant picture of the gazebo there that they used in The Sound of Music (it was originally at the Leopoldskron Palace, where much of the back patio part of The Sound of Music was filmed, and later was moved to Hellbrunn). Then we parked in Salzburg and walked around and saw a bunch of st...

Favorite US Travels: North Carolina Mountains Edition

Ah, the mountains of North Carolina. This was one of my favorite vacations. My family (minus my sister) rented a little house outside of Asheville, NC. Asheville itself seemed like a cool city to check out, but we didn't have time to do that...because we were too busy doing lots of other cool things! In fact, one of my favorite things we did there was visit the Biltmore Estate, which I will cover in another post after this one. Grandfather Mountain This place had some really neat hiking trails, including some that had ladders and ropes straight up rocks. My mom wanted to go on and check out that one further, but the rest of us declined - especially since it was drizzling off and on and the ladders were wet. Grandfather Mountain has an elevation of 5,945 feet and quite the bridge to walk out to the highest point. It's an amazing view, but it's also very windy and chilly up there. Gorges State Park Gorges State Park is also gorgeous ! My favorite hiking trails were h...

This Pilgrim's Journeys

Search This Blog